Broomsticks and Blush Brushes
by ThereBeDragons17
Summary: Ginny isn't the daughter Mrs. Weasley imagined having, growing up with six older brothers, but she comes to the realization that she will always love Ginny for the independent, tomboyish girl she is. A story about growing up and expectations (and ignoring those expectations).


It was the little things that made Ginny different from the daughter Mrs. Weasley had expected.

For starters, she didn't like to wear dresses, and never had. She hadn't been partial to skirts, either. Pink had been outlawed; purple, barely tolerated. Ginny had thrown a fit when she was seven because she was forced to wear a magenta colored hat and mittens. Not until Fred had crammed the hat on his own head and paraded around in it did Ginny stop screaming.

Ginny had never really used make-up or paid special attention to her hair. She had only laid out outfits in order to prevent others from going color-blind, and had appeared entirely uninterested when Mrs. Weasley had suggested going shopping in town. Of course, Mrs. Weasley supposed, growing up with six older brothers had to wear on one's feminine side, but she couldn't help being a little disappointed.

She and Arthur had tried to have a girl since Bill was born, and when Ginny had arrived, they had firmly agreed to stop there. It was all very well having six sons, but you never played dress-up with boys or did their hair or pretended that their dolls _did_ have opinions. She never would see her sons off to a dance, and wouldn't give any of her sons away at their weddings. Her sons would never come to her asking for dating advice or how to put on lipstick. That was what her mother had done with her, and that was what she had wanted to do with her daughter.

But Ginny wasn't that kind of girl. She was rough-and-tumble, up-for-anything and ready to take on all of her brothers combined, if challenged. Dolls and imaginary friends were forgone for broomsticks and goalposts; dresses and sandals were put aside for Wellington boots and heavy out-of-doors cloaks; and nail polish and mascara were replaced by streaks of mud and scratches. Dresses were for important and boring occasions, nice shoes were to be hidden with the ghoul in the attic and never worn again, Mum's sweaters were to be tolerated on Christmas and ignored the other 364 days of the year—all things she picked up from her brothers.

Sometimes, it was like Molly Weasley had had a seventh son.

But then there were those days when Ginny came inside in tears because Bill or Charlie of Percy wouldn't let her play Quidditch with them because she was a girl and with her they had an odd number. On those days Mrs. Weasley would march out, the epitome of motherly rage, and one of her eldest sons would meekly hand Ginny a broomstick before their mother came within firing range. There were the days when Ginny's brothers told her that she couldn't come into town with them because she wouldn't be able to walk that far and Bill didn't want to carry her; and on those days Ginny would run ahead of them the whole way there and arrive back home several minutes before the rest of them filed, bewildered, into the yard.

On those days Mrs. Weasley loved her daughter dearly.

During that year when Ron, her last son, had left for Hogwarts and Ginny hadn't yet been old enough, Mrs. Weasley had started to sculpt her into what a proper pre-teen girl was like. Ginny had still run out around the yard, climbed the trees, hurled garden gnomes over the fence and whatnot, but without any brothers to play with and assist her, Molly Weasley had found Ginny putzing around around inside more often and jumped on the opportunity to explain to her how make-up and hair curlers worked. That had been disastrous- when Ginny's mane of hair was curled it formed a massive, bouncing clump that was completely unmanageable and had given Arthur a fright when she had come careening around the corner to hug him hello after work.

When Ginny had gone off to Hogwarts, the Burrow was so unnaturally silent and tidy that Mrs. Weasley had found herself strewing books around the living room to make it seem more lived-in. She missed her boys. But she missed her girl the most. And then summer came and it was all business-as-usual with the kids running around in the yard and on broomsticks and Percy telling them off until they all trooped back inside, muddy but happy. They got into trouble as usual, she scolded them as usual, and then the school year swung around again and they were gone. They popped back in for winter break and summer holidays and were off again, and Ginny would always go bounding after her brothers, having spent the whole three months without giving a thought to make-up or hairstyles or who was going out with who, and Mrs. Weasley would be disappointed that she hadn't managed to change her daughter's mind.

One day, watching from the window of the Burrow's kitchen as the whole Weasley crew (plus Harry, who looked rather overwhelmed) unloaded from the car after a strenuous semester, Mrs. Weasley noticed that Ginny had pulled her hair down into a jaunty side-plait, complemented by a dark mascara and subtle eyeshadow, which she continually checked in the mirrors placed at inconvenient heights.

"Ginny, dear, how're you liking you new classes?"

"Hmm?" her daughter asked, poking at the eyeliner wing with her pinky and not looking up from the reflective glass. "Oh, they're fine, I suppose."

George poked his head around the door. "Ginny, we're headed to the field now that we have an even number for teams, fancy a match?"

Ginny fingered her hair for a moment. "Maybe."

George shrugged, evidently indifferent, and disappeared.

Mrs. Weasley raised an eyebrow from across the room. "No quidditch? That's not very like you, darling. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Ginny shrugged, "I just don't want to mess this up. It was a lot of work." She gestured to her makeup. "What do you think, by the way? D'you like it?"

It was in that instant, studying her only daughter as her sons ran out of the house to play their favorite game, and seeing how Ginny was going to pretend like it didn't matter so that she could be the image of what her mother had wished she would be, that Molly Weasley decided that she didn't like it at all.

But she didn't say so.

"It's very nice, dear."

"D'you think so?" Ginny twirled the end of her plait between her fingers before tossing it over her shoulder derisively. "I don't like it much, to be honest. I think I'm going to take it all off later."

Ginny swept out of the room with the same boyish gait she had always had. Mrs. Weasley stood at the sink, surprised, regretful, and relieved; surprised that she didn't like what Ginny had become, regretful that she had spent so many years pushing her towards it, and relieved that Ginny had decided to stay exactly how she had always been, and how she would always be.

 **A/N: So yeah, a bit of a saccharine premise but something that occurred to me when reflecting on teenage girls…the pressure to wear makeup and look nice like all the other girls when (if you're like me) all you want to do is play a great game of softball and get covered in clay, and what some girls sacrifice to appear to be like everyone else.**

 **Ginny is the best example of a badass female character who doesn't need a massive display of physical strength to convince the readership that she's a badass female character *looks accusingly at** ** _all_** **of YA fiction*.**


End file.
